Graham Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works on paper by artist, Shelly Malkin. The exhibition, Mind Journeys, from April 4th through May 4th, 2013is Malkin’s first solo show with the Gallery. A fully illustrated catalogue is available.

The exhibition is comprised of nineteen large-scale landscapes and a series of fifty intimate still-lifes. Using iridescent pigments, Malkin captures light particles and energy through her seemingly effortless layering of translucent color washes. This elegant and animated body of work serves to fulfill the artist’s compulsion to produce landscapes that “glow with an inner illumination and illustrate the aesthetic, emotional and spiritual significance of light in our lives.”

The bird’s eye view of each of the larger watercolors is influenced by Malkin’s climbing practice. An accomplished rock-climber, Malkin travels the world in search of challenging mountains and sheer rock walls to scale. Malkin compares the act of climbing to that of creating a watercolor. For her, both activities require courage and clear thinking. She admits, “When I am climbing, I can’t focus on scenery, so the watercolors are ‘flashbacks’ influenced by what I have seen. I want the works to have their own sense of equanimity and inner illumination. That is why I call them ‘mindscapes’.”

Malkin’s particular blending of the imagined and the real likewise informs her self-described series of “mystical” leaves. The seemingly naturalistic rendering of each of these fifty works on paper is a product of the artist’s imagination.

Born in New York City, Malkin lives in Greenwich, Connecticut and Aspen, Colorado. Malkin holds a degree in art history from Princeton University and has studied painting at the School of Visual Arts, the National Academy of Design in New York, the Silvermine Arts Center and the Renaissance Workshop of Dmitri Wright in Connecticut.